


Offerings

by daughteroflilith



Series: Songs of Innocence and Experience [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Fem-preg, Forced Exhibitionism, Magic Made Them Do It, Original Female Character/Original Female Character - Freeform, Ritual Public Sex, Sex Magic, Sex on an altar, Slightly Stargate Atlantis esk but not really, Something Made Them Do It, magic baby, sex in a temple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 10:42:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19207726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daughteroflilith/pseuds/daughteroflilith
Summary: When a diplomatic mission arrives on a distant planet they learn that the ritual of goodwill expected to secure an alliance is a bit more complicated than they'd been led to believe. That ritual may in fact require their lieutenant and the civilian anthropologist attaché to have sex on an altar. Unfortunately, there is also supposed to be musical accompaniment.





	Offerings

**Author's Note:**

> I have always loved all of the great fan-fiction tropes. There is something delightful in having a phrase or a word to describe situation that just does it for you in a story. One of my favorites is the "X made them do it" trope, especially when it means two protagonists must have public sex for some vague reason or other. I've used it a time or two in actual fan-fiction on my other account, Wanderingstoryteller, but I thought I would give it a shot here with some of my own characters.

I had never been to Petra but I had seen Indian Jones and the Last Crusade. The huge stone facade that loomed in front of me left me with the distinct impression that Harrison Ford and Sean Connery were going to hurry past in search of a certain grail. The Gehians were certainly big on carving things into stone and adding ornamental columns when they made giant temples up in the mountains.

Humans, as a general rule, are not actually the most creative species. Cultures don’t come up with their own art so much as modify that of another culture that came before. This rule held true to all the scattered bits of humanity that dotted the stars.  

Apparently good old Terra might have been the source of human life but we weren’t alone. The recent discovered of a series of rather well hidden stone portals, aptly named arches of light, that led to other civilizations via wormholes was currently one of the best kept secrets of earth governments, as well as the threat those portals posed. There were other human civilizations out there, many rather advanced and malevolent. The Gehians at least were supposed to be friendly.

While my team did not have the glamorous task of making first contact with other societies through the portals, we did our best at making very good follow up second and third contact. It was our job to secure and keep vital alliances. What that actually came down to tended to involve often going through a long series of portals to come out in the middle of nowhere on some distant planet and then often traveling for days or even months to reach capital cities, or in this case a temple.

Although Gehia had several countries, with their own capitals, those governments seemed to content to delegate all negotiations with offworlders to their religious class.

Not all civilizations had been fortunate enough to domesticate riding animals, develop the combustion engine, or to my great disappointment flying cars. No one had flying cars, although some did have planes. I’d never walked so much in my life, on the upside I was probably in the best shape a bookish academic like me could ever hope for.

My team consisted of five soldiers, including Lieutenant Sharp who led the expedition, two diplomats, and me, the team anthropologist. My job was supposed to be to study the culture we encountered and try to avoid any awkward misunderstandings. This quickly proved to be a task as monumental as the temple facade.

 

A few hours later we were washed, dressed in the cleanest clothes we had, and doing a very poor job of actually securing the trade alliance we had come for.

“You can't be serious. Surely you don’t really expect me to...with Lieutenant Sharp...on the altar....with the thing you described...while people are watching.” I was definitely stuttering a bit as I spoke to the priestess sitting across from me at the low table in the temple’s inner courtyard.

She offered me a closed mouth smile and tilted her head slightly. I hadn’t realized that the Gehian civilization even had silk or red dye until my small expedition had arrived at the great temple of Hacia. Priestess Inari certainly made good use of her personal allotment of all things crimson and silky. Somehow her dress managed to cling to all her pleasing curves in spite of having so many layers. Her lips and nails were painted the color of fresh blood and her dark hair was tugged up in a complex twist with a red gem studded ribbon.

“I am, very much so. I thought your first representative understood what was required.”

At my side, Lieutenant Sharp leaned forward. “Apparently he did not. He told us that your people agree to an alliance with Terra, if we sent representatives to take part in a ritual of unification on the summer solstice.” While not a diplomat herself, she tended to be fairly good at soothing ruffled feathers.

“Yes, that was what I asked of him.

“Then there has been some miscommunication,” said Ambassador Mary Black, from where she sat on my left. “Our representative told us that we needed to send two women for a ritual that was merely a symbolic show of trust. That is what my colleague, Ms. Jones and I have come to do, not this bizarre thing you are describing.” On her left, her assistant Stephanie looked as deeply uncomfortable as the rest of us.

The priestess twisted her small bow shaped mouth into a frown. “Then either he wasn’t very bright or he didn’t listen very well. I was very clear that we required two life bonded priestess’s for the ritual.”

“Ambassador Smith says he told you that our society did not have any priestesses comparable to your own and asked if you would accept two female religious leaders instead. You told him that you did not require religious leaders, merely two women capable of speaking for their own people,” replied Ambassador Black.

Her frown deepened, had the situation not been so serious, the pout would have been rather cute. “I didn’t just say two women, I asked for a couple of child bearing age.”

I let out a tired breath. “So when you said couple, you actually meant that didn’t you?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I understand those babble translators in your ears aren’t very good but surely my meaning was obvious. I was led to believe that your culture values marriage less than my own so I did not ask for a married couple, just a couple. Now you’ve failed to even bring me that. What am I to do with one ambassador who is well past her youth and another who’s got a husband back on her own world. They are of no use for this.”

The two diplomats in question both looked mildly insulted. Ambassador Black tended to be a bit sensitive about her age. She’d made something of a point during the two week long trek to the temple that she could keep up and carry as heavy a pack as anyone else. Stephanie just shrugged.

The lieutenant ran a frustrated hand through her dark hair. “You can’t seriously expect us to hike back two weeks, find a young lesbian couple on one of the Terran bases and convince them to come back and perform your rather...well I don’t even know what to call your ritual other than explicit.”

“I’m not asking you to do anything, just stating what is necessary for an alliance to be formed. You’re the one who keeps insisting this alliance needs to be agreed to now.”

“Yes, we need the medicine for grain trade agreement to begin sooner rather than later. Food supplies at our nearest base through the light arch are running low,” insisted Ambassador Black, annoyance clear in her voice.

“Then I don’t see why you can’t make this work. You’ve still brought two women who are acceptable for the ritual, Lieutenant Sharp and Dr. Cooper.”

“Excuse me!” I said.

Sergeant Sharp spoke a bit more calmly. “Dr. Cooper and I are not a couple.”

The priestess gave her a very long look. She lacked glasses but I had the very distinctive impression that if she had, she’d have looked at me over them. “No but you both wish you were, which seems good enough to me. It goes a bit against tradition to have an unbonded couple perform this ritual but you are both women who prefer women and of the appropriate age, I think we can make an exception.”

I blushed to the very roots of my hair.

Lieutenant Sharp looked similarly embarrassed.

Priestess Inari sighed,. “Don’t look so shocked, you don’t so much broadcast as yell. You’re both very much in lust with each other.

When both Lieutenant Sharp and I both stared at her in mortification she just grinned. “Honestly, how does Terra not have any psychics? I’m not even directly reading your minds, these are simply the emotions that you are both projecting outwards.”

“No, our earth does not have psychics and if we had any with as little of a filter as you do, I don’t think it would go well,” I admitted.

“Because not saying things clearly works so well,” the damn woman managed to be utterly deadpan as she said it.  

Ambassador Black saved the situation.

“Forgive us, Priestess Inari, but will you really accept no one for this ritual other than Dr. Copper and Lieutenant Sharpe?”

“No one else in your current party. The Gehian solstice is tomorrow. If you miss that we will have to wait for the fall equinox.”

“And you are unwilling to modify the ritual in any way, much less wave having it, even to accommodate for the differences between our respective cultures?”

“I would say that I have already accommodated you a great deal,” now the woman in red was starting to sound annoyed herself.

“Then I think it best that my people and I take time to confer before we reach a decision.”  

“Very well but please let me know your decision before the eleventh bell. If the ritual is to go forward tomorrow, preparations need to be made.”

 

After a series of formal bows, we retreated from the courtyard back to the series of rooms we had been given. We returned to the rooms we had been give, where the rest of our party was waiting. We left the soldiers to their card games and went to confer in a back room. Ambassador Black was the first to state the obvious.

“I don’t suppose you two would be willing to just go along with the ritual would you? That really would simplify everything.”

Before I could speak, Lieutenant Sharp did. “I’m sorry ma’am but no. I understand I have a duty to see this mission successfully carried out but I draw the line at publicly having sex with an unwilling civilian.”

“She’s not actually said she’s unwilling,” said the ambassador, glancing at me questioningly.

“I…” Well I couldn’t see to find words easily. A lot of things were warring inside of myself. At last I managed. “How badly does Zeta Sigma base need the grain?”

Mary sighed, sitting down wearily on a hard wooden low backed chair. “They’ll never make it through the winter without it, not after the Havu cut off our main supply route through Tipilia. The base will have to be abandoned until spring. All the higher ups thought this alliance and trade treaty were already secured and have been planning accordingly.

Guilt twisted my stomach. I knew how important that base was. I bit at my lip, casting a quick glance towards the lieutenant. “Riley, I’m willing to do this, if you are.”

Her dark eyes eyes widened. Surprise was a rather attractive look on her handsome face. “You mean that.”

“Yes, I know how much we need this alliance.”

I clearly chose the wrong thing to say because her face closed like a slammed door. “That may be but no one here has any right to ask this of you.”

I looked down at my hands. “No one has the right to force me. Asking is different. I’m agreeing to this of my own free will.”

Her lips thinned, “Because if you say no Zeta Sigma base starves, that’s hardly a real choice.”

“No but it is the situation we find ourselves in,” I snapped. “Now you said that your objection was because you believed me unwilling. I’m not. If you aren't willing to do this, I understand but don’t use me as the reason.”

Her face heated again. “If you agree to this, then so will I.”

The ambassador clapped her hands. “Good, it’s sorted then. I’ll go tell our voyeuristic hosts.” She never did lose an opportunity for sarcasm, even when she really should have.

 

In spite of lying on the softest surface I had in weeks, I couldn’t manage to fall asleep that night. I tossed and turned on my low sleeping couch that night. For once it wasn’t because of Ambassador Blacks snoring or Stephanie's tendency to talk in her sleep, although the ambassador was indeed snoring and Stephanie was mumbling something about pineapples.

When at last I couldn’t bear it anymore, I tugged my shoes on, grabbed my coat and slipped from the shared room. The night air had just the slightest hint of a chill to it. As high in the mountains as we were, even the night before midsummer’s eve wasn’t going to be balmy. It never failed to amaze me how many other planets had seasons similar to earth’s. Who’d have ever thought so many habitable planets had tilted axis. Then again, maybe the first humans who left earth through the arches of light specifically chose to settle on planets with seasons because they were familiar.

I walked out through the small common room that joined all the bedrooms and then onto the little stone balcony that looked down upon the mountain valley in which the temple sat. I had just tilted my head up to contemplate the distant and unfamiliar stars when I heard a cough.

Lieutenant Sharp had been leaning on the carved stone railing, so utterly still that I hadn’t even noticed her. I knew her outline well enough to recognize her, the only other female soldier with us wore her hair in a braid not cut short as Sharp did.

“Dr. Cooper?” she asked and I realized that I might have been hard to make out with the dark room behind me.

“Yea,” I said as I came to lean against the railing beside her.

“If you want some time to yourself, I can go,” she offered.

“No, you were here first, if anything I should offer to go,” a deep weariness began to tug at me.

“Stay, please.”

We stood in silence for a moment, at last I could bear it no longer. “So was the priestess right, do you fancy me then?”

She laughed softly at my odd turn of words. “Yes, I do actually. You do know your pretty damn attractive.”

“You got a thing for mousey academics?”

“More like a thing for beautiful women, although I do find your glasses very cute.” That woman had a silver tongue.

“You’re not so bad looking yourself.” I replied. Well she was basically the lesbian equivalent of catnip. The first time I saw her I’d been convinced that I’d just met a somewhat older and higher ranking version of that cute female marine form the second Alien’s movie.

A thought occurred to me. “So if you think I’m cute, why didn’t you ever say anything?”

She shrugged. “It wouldn’t have been appropriate, not when you were a civilian attache on a field mission I was leading.”

“Are you always so honorable?”

“I was going to ask you out for a cup of coffee when we got back to Zeta Sigma base.”

“The coffee there is terrible,” at least the coffee like plant we’d been able to trade with the locals for was.

“Well, maybe a cup of moonshine. If I’d asked, would you have said yes?”

“Yea. Honestly, if you hadn't been so prim and proper all this mission I’d have invited you into my bedroll a week ago.”  

That earned a chuckle. “Forward, aren’t you?”

“I suppose I could have made you dinner first, added hot water to a pack of dehydrated food and everything.”

“So romantic.” It was too dark to really see her face but I had the distinctive impression that she was smiling.

Shyly I reached to lay a hand over hers. “After tomorrow, will you still want to drink bad coffee with me.”

“You think me such a cad that I lose all interest in a woman once I’d bedded her?” Lieutenant Riley Sharp might look a soldier down to her very boots but she was educated or at least well read.

I leaned closer, “No, I would never think that of you.”

“Then it is a date.”

Suddenly a thought occurred to me. “I don’t want to kiss you the first time in front of a bunch of people.”

She took the invitation, slipping an arm around my waist to pull me close and bring out lips together. She was a very good kisser, starting out with light pressure and then deepening the kiss. Her hands remained respectful, although I rather wished that they didn’t.

I was more than a bit disappointed when she finally pulled away. I even considered suggesting that maybe we should take the opportunity to practice for the next day. Instead she took my hand and kissed it. “It’s late, we should both rest. I’ll see you in the morning beautiful.”

Begrudgingly I let her go and then headed back inside myself.

 

I was less than pleased when two younger priestess woke me very early in the morning and ushered me off. Two other one’s woke Lieutenant Sharp and tugged her off down a different hallway. I absently wondered if this was supposed to be like a wedding day where you weren’t supposed to see your intended.

The two younger priestess’s, who turned out to not actually be full priestess’s yet, just novices as apparently I should have known from the lack of sacred tattoos on their hands, led me to the temple baths.

The temple sat on a thermal spring and had a very nice marble and columned space with several large warm pools of water. I’d had the pleasure of going there the day before to wash of road dust. I tried to insist that I was still clean but this fell on deaf ears.

A much older and more matronly priestess insisted on repeatedly dunking me in one of the smaller pools and scrubbing me within an inch of my life. Apparently I was not to be trusted to wash behind my ears.

After that I was led to a smaller room and told to lie down naked on a table. I was less than thrilled about this.The purpose was to draw a series of intricate henna like designs on my entire body.

This was mostly done by the two novice priestess’s with the help of a large book they kept consulting and occasionally sharply worded corrections by the matronly priestess. I can safely say it was the least erotic experience of my life.

When that was done they gave me a series of bronze bracelets, necklaces, anklets and other jewelry covered in complex designs. Somewhat bizarrely the matronly priestess was very pleased to find that I had not only pierced ears but also a navel piercing and provided jewelry for all of those.

As she put it. “Good to see you were raised properly. I’ll never understand these modern women who run around without sacred jewelry to protect them, just wearing the charms without a piercing isn't enough.”

I made the mistake of asking what a belly button ring could protect me from and she looked at me like I was stupid. “From evil spirits of course. They can cause bareness or miscarriages.”

From the way the two novices rolled their eyes, I got the feeling that this might be more of a folk belief than religious canon.

I was somewhat disconcerted when they gave me a white silk robe to wear instead of actual clothing. I had to sit very still as one novice braided a truly impressive number of ribbons and bells into my hair and the other painted my nails and toenails.

Then and only then did they at last give me something to eat. Gehian food was actually very good and well spiced, even if it was completely vegetarian and relied heavily on a sort chickpea.

When the sun reached its zenith they told me that it was time to go to the inner sanctum for the ritual. Had I not been so nervous I might have appreciated the truly impressive architecture of the room in which the temple’s main altar was housed.

Corinthian columns lifted up a delicately arched ceiling that could have given Notre Dame a run for its money. Light poured in through a series of thick colored glass windows. The windows came as a bit of surprise, as for the main part, I’d mostly just seen wooden shutters in the towns we had passed through. Gehian’s could make glass panes, apparently it was just too expensive or tricky to bother doing it anywhere but in a sacred space.

The main chamber of the temple itself was about the size of the front nave of St. Paul’s cathedral. As we headed towards the main altar, a huge stone affair draped in silks, I noticed that there was no shortage of little side shrines along the way. I was still not sure if the statues of humans and creatures were gods, or saints, or demons. When I got the chance, I still needed to actually do my job and learn what I could about the culture I had come to study.

The head priestess, Inari, was waiting for us at the altar. She was accompanied by six other priestesses of a wide range of ages, The oldest woman present must have been well past a hundred, hunched and bird bone thin. The youngest seemed of age with the novices I had just met, although her hands bore the full tattoos. Oddly enough, I noticed that one woman of middle years was heavily pregnant. Apparently this wasn’t a celebate religious order, as most single gendered ones tend to be.

One woman had a pipe and another a small hand drum. I had no idea what to think about the ritual having musical accompaniment.  

To my complete and utter chagrin, both the ambassador and her aid were present. Ambassador Black stood stoically, as if she were simply waiting for a meeting to start. At her side, Stephanie offered me an apologetic shrug. Apparently they had been required to be presented. At least Lieutenant Sharp’s four soldiers weren’t there. I don’t think I’d ever live it down if any of them saw me naked much less in fragrant delecto.

I saw no sign of Lieutenant Sharp yet. When we reached the altar the head priestess came and greeted me as if we were friends.

“Welcome dear girl.”

She handed me a metal goblet filled with something red.I took the cup but hesitated to bring it to my lips. “Go on, it is part of the ritual,” she told me.”

The taste was terribly bitter, as if something had been added to a strong red wine.

I’d barely handed back the cup before my world began to go a bit hazy. What the hell had she drugged me with?

Before I realized what she was doing, she’d untied the sash of my robe and eased it down my shoulders. I shivered in the cool air of the room and from the shock of suddenly finding myself naked in front of so many clothed women.

Almost kind, Inari took my hand and tugged me towards the altar. I was relieved to find that someone had set some wooden steps beside it, as it wouldn’t be very dignified to hoist myself onto the altar naked.

She guided me to lay down on my back. I didn’t like that, it made it hard to see what else was going on in the room. I pushed up onto my elbows and Inari shook her head.

“Easy child.” She pressed down on my shoulder, guiding me onto the table and then laid a hand on my naked stomach, causing me to jump. Her touch felt far warmer than it should have.

Mostly to herself she murmured, “Good, you’re at the right time. This ritual will yield more than just an alliance.”

Then she drew back and I heard footsteps and voices, it sounded like Inari was giving some sort of blessing. When I heard Lieutenant’s voice I sat up, “Riley?”

She moved quickly to my side. “I’m here Sarah.”

She was certainly an interesting sight to take in. She was as naked as I was and covered in her own complex set of designs. She’d been spared the hair braiding, as hers was too short, and had been given no jewelry.

She was wearing...well it wasn’t as if I were any stranger to strap-ons but I’d never seen anything that impressive, much less carved out of white stone with runes before. The harness was a work of art as well, perfectly tooled leather with intricate designs. Both harness and dildo really belonged in a museum.

I was, however, having serious doubts as to the practical applications of the entire contraptions. I wasn’t sure I could take a toy that big on a good day much less while being watched by the entire inner counsel of a temple and two earth diplomats.

The lieutenant must have seen the worry in my eyes because she took my hand, “Hey, it’s gonna be okay.”

Even just the touch of her hand ignited something in me. I don’t know if it was whatever I had been given or my own honest desire but suddenly I needed her desperately. I sat up, reaching for her. She let me pull her into a kiss. She responded, her lips soft against my own.

“Touch me,” I whispered in her ear. Obediently she climbed onto the altar, covering me.  Her hands were gentle, slowly tracing over my body, running up my sides, tracing the outline of my breasts, almost reverently.

The priestess with the drum and the one with the pipe started playing. I was still unsure why anyone felt the need for musical accompaniment but I was beyond caring.

I felt need pool in my core, desire bright and warm sparking through me. It helped that she was a very good kisser. In my ear she whispered. “Fingers or lips?”

I flushed, I hadn’t thought she’d actually ask.

“Lips first and then fingers,” I gasped. I was embarrassed to ask for a more intimate act, all things considered but I’d seen the size of the phallus that was supposed to go inside of me. I needed to be wet and aroused enough.  

She kissed down my neck, pausing to suck on a breast and then working lower. I tangled my hands in her hair and guided her. She nudged between my legs, using her fingers to part my lower lips and lightly lick at the inside of my inner labia before circling my clit. The moment she actually brushed her tongue against that sensitive bundle of nerves I was lost.

I pressed my eyes closed and focused on exactly what she was doing to me. The woman was talented. She varied between lighter swirling pressure and then hard direct licks. When she switched to briefly sucking on my clit I couldn’t suppress my moans. I had to cover my mouth to muffle my own cries.

I was so close, so damn close but I couldn’t quite get there. I’d never really understood why but while I loved oral sex and it could get me just to edge, I could seldom actually orgasm from it alone. I nearly always needed something inside of me as well as clitoral stimulation to get off. As a young woman I’d worried about this, thought I was too complicated and demanding, as a more mature one I had learned to ask for what I needed.

“Fingers,” I managed to get out between panting breaths.

Without ceasing the truly wonderful things she was doing with her mouth she pressed one and then another finger into my slick and eager body. I clenched around her digits as she began to curl them inside me, up against my front walls with just the perfect amount of pressure.

I had to bite my hand in order not to scream as my back arched and my body trembled. She worked me through my orgasm and then eased her finger from me. She crawled back up to kiss me on the cheek, lips still wet with my essence.

“You ready for the next part?”

And just like that I yanked back into the situation. I kept my gaze focused on her lovely face so that I would not look past her to the priestesses and crowd beyond. The music and drumming was getting louder, so we’re a lot of other sounds.

“Get four fingers in first, it’s big.”

She stretched over me, pressing two and then three fingers into me. She brushed her thumb against my clit and I moaned and clutched at her shoulders just to have something to ground me. She kissed me properly then, all passion and need. I knew she wanted me then, all of the strangeness of the ritual and forced intimacy aside, she wanted me desperately and hungrily. Damn if I didn’t want her too.

How the hell had we taken so long to find each other. Well I knew why, her honor and shyness, still if I’d known she was this good in bed, I’d have jumped her bones some time ago.

Lieutenant Sharp waited until I was on the edge again, fucking me steadily with four fingers and then slowed.

I nearly screamed.

She lightly nipped my ear, “ready now?”

I was until she’d spoken. I made the mistake of looking past her and seeing the head priestess watching us. It would have been easier if there had at least been honest lust on her face, instead she simply looked patiently interested, like an actress waiting for her cue.

“Yes,” I lied.

“Alright beautiful,” she murmured. She shifted her weight, moving so that she lined up the dildo with my entrance.

I should have closed my eyes but I didn’t. Everyone, every single priestess in that damn room and our diplomats were watching us. I tensed with every part of my body. I hated feeling so helpless, as if I were simply a puppet for others.

Lieutenant Sharp pressed the phallus against my entrance but froze when she felt my resistance.

“Sarah?” she asked softly, her forehead creased with worry.

“Get on your back, that will make this easier for me.”

She rolled off of me and we re-arranged ourselves. The moment I straddle the lieutenant I felt in control of things again. This time I kept my eyes on her, even as the damn drumming and pipe music got louder.

I leaned down to kiss her and she reached up to pull me closer. “Tell me what you need.”

“Let me ride you as you touch me.”

I reached down to line up the damn bizzare stone phallus, pressed it against myself and began to slowly sink down on it.

It really was big, even for me and I had a box of that sort of thing beneath my bed back home. It didn’t hurt, it was just a lot and I couldn’t rush. I focused on forcing my body to relax and bit by bit the toy eased into me. When it was fully sheathed I rested panting, my forehead pressed against my lovers.

“Easy, take your time,” she rubbed slow circles on my naked back.  

I reached between us to touch my own clit, making just the right firm circles I knew I needed to heat my blood.

She caught my face with her other hand and turned it to kiss me, deep and meaningfully. Everything started to feel very good.  

I rested my other hand on her shoulder and gave my hips an experimental roll. That did a lot for me. I moaned and did the exact thing again.

Distantly I was aware that the music seemed to be getting louder. I was beyond caring as I began to fuck myself properly.

I was not beyond caring when I felt a hand on my shoulder, although I knew where both of mine and both of Riley’s were.

I jerked away from the head priestess and the woman beneath me made a possessive, almost growl like sound.

“Easy,” murmured the priestess. “I must kindle the spell or this will all be for naught.”

I didn’t like it but I didn’t know what else to do. “It’s okay, let her do it.” I told Riley, who looked ready to pull me away from the woman in red.

The priestess traced her hand down my side and the skin heated with her touch. She pressed her whole palm against my stomach and I gasped. It felt as if liquid fire replacing my blood. When I looked down I saw that all the intricately wrought designs on my skin had come alive with light. That really shouldn’t have been possible. I’d seen so many things in my life since I first began to step through the light arches but I had never seen magic.

She used her other hand to touch the lieutenant’s hand where she had it resting on my hip. In an instant the marks all across her body came alight as well. I had to be hallucinating.

“Move,” the priestess whispered in my ear and I began to move my hips again of a volition that did not feel like my own. I was utterly overwhelmed, I forgot about my clit and pressed that hand against the altar for better balance as I fucked myself harder and harder on the strange object that now felt as hot inside of me as the priestess's touch did against my skin.

I wanted to kiss Riley again but I needed to breathe.  I felt the priestess’s hand trace down from my stomach and find my forgotten clit. Being touched by an actual electrical current might have had less of an effect on me.

I cried out and clutched at the woman under me, clawing at her back and shoulders with my short nails. She made a very interesting sound in answer. It occured to me, as I kept slamming my body against hers, that the strange stone dildo was probably pressing against her clit.

She grabbed at me, helping me rise and fall, guiding my frantic movements. Between her and the priestess, I’m amazed I lasted as long as I did. My orgasm caught me and brought what could only be described as a scream to my lips. Distantly I was aware that Riley made a similar sound. I clenched on the hard stone toy inside of me and clutched at my lover as my release washed over me.

I don’t know how long it lasted but when I became aware of much of anything again I was slumped over Riley, who was gently stroking my now tangled hair.

The head priestess was speaking to the others. She clapped her hands once and the women began to disperse.

Inari came back to the altar then. She did not ask permission to touch me then, any more than she ever had. She nudged me off of my lover enough to again press her palm against my stomach. I felt a cooler spark, this one not at all like lust but not unpleasant. She smiled like a baker who was pleased to find her dough had risen.

“Excellent the spark has taken. If the child comes to term and flourishes, bring her back here after she has her first blood. She’ll need help controlling her magic when it first comes to her.”

I blinked at her groggily. “What?”

Riley sat up, pulling me closer to herself and away from the priestess. “What are you talking about?”

The damn bitch actually raised an eyebrow. “Did you not realize the point of the ritual was to create life? I mean, none of the imagery was exactly subtle.”

“I thought it was all symbolic,” I said. Well symbolic and really weird but I hadn’t believed that magic even existed much less that some strange ritual with a stone dildo could get me pregnant.

“We agreed to be part of your ritual to secure the alliance, not to…”

The priestess tilted her head slightly. “Do you not want the alliance anymore?”

“Of course we do,” I said quickly. I had no idea how I felt about anything that had just happened but I sure as hell wasn’t loosing that fucking treaty.

“Very well. Go and rest and we will finalize the last details of the alliance in the morning.”

 

Things were very awkward between Lieutenant Riley Sharp for about a day. Then I invited her into my bed the next night. If there was one thing I was sure of, it was that I still wanted her desperately.

She hesitated for about half a breath, mumbling something about not wanting to take advantage of me. I told her that was kind of stupid to worry about after the day before. She caved as soon as I kissed her. There were a lot of things we probably needed to talk about but we didn’t, not then anyway.  

My period didn’t come when it was supposed to two weeks after the ritual. For some women that might not have been overly worrying, except mine was never, ever late, not by more than a day or two. My worry deepened when it was a week late, and then two and then three. I tried to tell myself I’d skipped a period but I didn’t believe it, especially not when I missed a second bleeding.

I had no way to get a pregnancy test and I had no intention of going to one of the temple healers. When I began to feel sick in the mornings and throw up each morning during the long hike back to the light arch, the Occam's razor explanation seemed the simplest.

Riley and I finally talked curled up together in her tent, the night before we reached the arch.

“What if I actually am pregnant?”

She took her time before answering and then didn’t give me any answer at all.“What do you want to do?”

“I...I don’t know.”

She kissed the back of my neck, “you don’t have to yet. You can go see Doctor Meyers on the base and decide from there.”

I turned in her arms, seeing her face in the darkness. “What do you want me to do?”

“Sarah, it’s not my body. I don’t have the right to tell you what to do.”

I tensed, “I know that but if I carry this pregnancy the baby will be yours too. I need to know how you feel about this. Do you want to be a mother? Will you hate me if I get an abortion. Will you hate me if I carry the pregnancy and give the baby away. Will you hate me if I keep it instead. Are you going to act like a character in a hallmark movie and offer to marry me? Are you going to resent being forced to be a mother when you didn’t even want to sleep with me in the first place? Will you pay child support? How the hell does child support even apply to magically conceived offworld babies!” I was getting somewhat hysterical.

She took a slow steadying breath. “I could never hate you,” she kissed my forehead. “If you decide to terminate, I’ll be sad about what never was but I’ll understand. If…” she struggled to find her words. “If you decide to carry this pregnancy I will do everything I can to help you raise the baby, no matter if we end up together or not. I never thought to be a mother, I don’t know what kind of one I’ll be, but I’m willing to try.”

It wasn’t the most impassioned speech I’d ever heard, and she still hadn’t said which choice she’d prefer, but at least she’d spoken honestly and for that I was grateful.

I rested my head on her shoulder and she slipped an arm around my waist. She felt so warm and safe. A deep, almost animalistic, part of myself wanted to just cling to her, tell her that we should have the baby and make a go of things as a couple. The wiser part of me hesitant.

I’d been divorced once before and that made me cautious. Perhaps I’d married too young the first time, or simply married a fool, but it had ended with two broken hearts. There are countless kinds of innocence we shed throughout our lives, some leave us stronger and others simply scarred. After my divorce I would never again be a woman who leap without looking.

What I decided about the pregnancy and what I decided about Riley had to be separate decisions, of that I was certain. I spoke the next words with all honesty, “I want to have this baby but I still don’t know if that means I should.”

Her hands tightened around me. “You want her?”

I thought of how it felt to hold my newborn niece, tiny and wrinkly faced and perfect.  I thought of the strange longing that rose up inside of me when I spent time with friends children. As a younger woman, I’d always said I wanted children, my ex and I had always meant to have them. Then after her betrayal, after I found myself alone in the first years of my thirties, my priorities changed.

It had been around then that my career had finally taken off and then I’d been recruited by the top secret agency that managed earth’s light arc. What did the death of one dream matter in the face of seeing alien worlds? And yet now, suddenly, desperately, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to give up that dream anymore.  

“Yes I want her. Even if I have to raise her on my own, even if this hurts my career, I want her.” The words came tumbling out. My whole life I’d always tried to make important decisions logically, carefully, and yet this was one I had to make with my heart.

She hugged me tighter, “You won’t be raising her alone and if any of the higherups try to fuck with your career, they’ll have to deal with me.”

In spite of myself I laughed softly. “And how the hell am I supposed to take a baby on field missions?”

“Maybe not that but all of the bases need permanent anthropologists to help prevent any more epic cultural misunderstandings. Some of the safer bases even allow staff have their families with them.”  

I settled against her. “Oh, so I’ll stay on the base like a good little mother and you’ll run off on adventures?”

“Delta Epsilon base needs a new head of security. I was offered the position before we left. I’m supposed to give my answer when we get back. If I take that position I’m sure I’ll have the influence to make sure they let you transfer to a non field based position there.”

“Your serious.”

“Yes.”

“What if I’m not even pregnant.”

“You’ll get a pregnancy test as soon as we reach the base and then we’ll know before we make any decisions.”

“What if I am, and we both transfer to the same base but I lose the baby.” I’d helped my sister grieve two miscarriages. I knew how tenuous a pregnancy could be, especially early on.

“Then we’ll grieve together.”

“What if we try to make a go of it but it turns out we can’t stand each other?”

“Then we’ll figure out how to co-parent like separated parents do all the time.”  

“I won’t marry you, not just because I’m pregnant with your baby.”

“I wasn’t suggesting you should.”

“You’ve got the right answer to everything don’t you?”

“Yea, I do,” she kissed the back of my neck because she couldn’t get at much else.

“You’re a smug thing, aren't you?” I asked.

“I try,” she replied warmly.

“So we’re really doing this then?”

“I’m in if you are.”

“Then I am.”

I fell asleep in the warm circle of her arms. The future stretched out before me vast and uncertain but I felt, almost, if not quite, able to meet it.

 

…

 

Afterwards

 

Excerpt from _The Memoirs of Allison Sharp Cooper:  Child of the Arches of Light_

 

I was not the first baby born on Deta Epsilon base but I was the first glowing one. No one was ever able to determine why I spent my first few months periodically luminescent but it seemed to mostly happen when I was sleeping or nursing. The glowing ceased when my first milk teeth came in and did not return.

After such an auspicious beginning, I proved to be a rather unremarkable child. I was almost stubbornly average in everything from my speed of growth to my marks in school. My mothers of course always thought I was the most amazing child ever but that it the nature of Mothers. They treated my dried macaroni artwork with all reverence and even tolerated the years I spent attempting to learn to play the recorder.

I passed my childhood on a series of distant bases and never even saw earth until I was nearly seven. We spent one year there so that I could meet my grandparents and learn where my mothers from but we did not stay. My mothers’ careers had us stepping back through the earth arch of light soon enough and I was glad of it. Earth had proven rather dull but each new planet we came to every time we stepped through an arches always had something fascinating, be it orange tree or singing rocks.

I failed to do anything particularly noteworthy until I turned eleven. The week of my first period, I woke up with my entire bed on fire. By some miracle the bases sprinklers turned on and no one was hurt. From that moment on, I knew everything had changed.

My mothers were at first resistant to taking me to Gehia. Then an incident even more troubling forced their hands. I had not been on Tau Hi base for very long before I made an enemy. I was a quiet child and an older girl and two of her friends took this as sufficient reason to try to bully me. They had begun with taunts but a week after the fire incident the leader of that trio of girls made the mistake of bodily shoving me while we were at recess out in the yard.

A nearby teacher would later describe seeing a pulse of blue light flow out from me in a perfect dome. The light threw the larger girl and her friends forcefully backwards. While none of them were seriously hurt, the way they all bleed from the eyes and nose immediately afterwards frightened everyone, myself included. I hadn’t meant to hurt anyone, hadn’t even caused the pulse of light on purpose.

Shortly after that, my mothers and I began along journey through a series of light arcs and bases to reach Gehia. The two week hike to the temple was the farthest I had ever walked in my life. It all seemed a great and incredible journey to me. I had seen many worlds but none that sang to me the way the high mountains of Gehia did. Home had always been with my mothers, no matter what base that was. For the first time in my life, I had an inkling it might also be a place.

I can still remember the sight of the Great Temple rising from the very rock face of the mountains and the beautiful red cloth that every woman we met there wore. At first, I think my mothers hoped we needed only consult with the priestess and then be on our way back through an arch of light to a Terran base.

Instead I managed to set our room at the temple on fire that night in my sleep. There was little question of leaving before I could control my powers after that. In the end Mama Riley had to hike back to the light arch two months later because she had to return to her duties. Mama Sarah stayed under the pretense of study Gehian culture for a year but really to watch over me.

At the end of that year, I could control my powers, at least as far as fire and pulses of light went but I wanted to learn to use them better. I think it broke Mama Sarah’s heart when I said I wanted to stay and be a novice at the temple but she trusted the priestesses enough then to agree. She or Mama Riley returned to check on me every four to six months after that.

Although I studied as a novice for four years, and earned the title of red mage, I never took a priestesses vows. The ordered life of the temple was not for me. I had very little interest in matters of the spirit and a great deal of interest in what I might do out in the worlds with my magic. When I returned to my own people my mothers were overjoyed but others called me a sorceress and others a witch. No one could deny I had power though nor the need for that power when the time came.

I heard no complaints when a temple rain spells enabled me to end the drought on Gamma Delta and only praise when I defeated the False Winter King on the iceworld of Iota Eta or later when threw back the dark plague on Mu Nu. Those stories, however, are for another time.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this story and that it wasn't too silly. I really meant it to be a short erotic fic and then when I sat down to write it I ended up with fifteen pages and a lot of feels. I'm still not sure if the epilog works or if it is overly cheesy so let me know if you have any thoughts on that.
> 
> \--If you liked this story come check me out at catherineyoungbooks.com I have more writing there--


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